


Friends Don't Let Friends Assassinate People

by Kacka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Avengers AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 02:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11796201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: Clarke is pretty sure Bellamy is the Winter Soldier, which is at least better than when she thought he was dead. Now all she has to do is figure out how to help him. And save the world. She's probably got this.





	Friends Don't Let Friends Assassinate People

**Author's Note:**

> Happy bday to my irl bff! Thanks for being the best and here's a Stucky Bellarke AU bc I know what you like <333
> 
> Also, I feel like I should note that most of this is a departure from the canonical MCU. Don't @ me

 

The problem isn't that Clarke thought she saw Bellamy.

She thinks she sees him all the time. That's the thing about spending seventy years in a coma: while there's plenty she doesn't recognize, there's also enough that's the same-- or at least, familiar-- that she has to do a double take, has to squint and look past the twenty-first century in order to recognize the bones that might be of her time.

Whether the store that's now a cafe is the same building as that butcher shop she used to go to, or if that was over on seventh street instead. Whether a particular strain of music is something she used to hear at a dance hall, or if it's some evolution of the same phrase that doesn't even know where it grew from.

She tries not to sift out those relics, but it's instinctual. The same way she looks for faces she recognizes in every crowd.

It's no wonder that she'd think she sees Bellamy. He was her best friend, the one she always thought would go prematurely gray trying to keep her out of trouble, the one who had her back in every fight she started (no matter how outmatched they were). They were never apart for long until he enlisted and the army refused her time and time again, until she wound up agreeing to become a test subject if it meant she got to serve.

Even after seeing what she'd become, this pageant princess for the army to tote out when they needed to look good, this freak of nature who might not have even been human anymore, he only ever looked at her with pride. He never bit his tongue when he thought her plans were too reckless, and he never hesitated when she needed him.

His face haunts her dreams, both the good ones, full of that cocky smirk and those teasing smiles, and the ones where she relives the moment he slipped from her grasp. The terror on his face, the panic. In that split second there hadn't been any time for blame, but she sees it in his eyes every time she watches him fall.

Those moments are easy enough to write off. What's hard is unlearning the impulse to seek his face in passersby, her heart leaping when she glimpses skin the right shade of brown or dark hair slicked down or a sharp, defiant jawline. Her hopes falling every time she sees that the skin isn't freckled or the hair isn't quite the right texture or the cut of the jaw is too relaxed to be his after all.

It might be easier, Raven tells her, if she moved away from Brooklyn. Started fresh in one of the other boroughs, or even a different city.

Kane assures her that S.H.I.E.L.D. will be able to find her wherever she goes. Clarke knows he hadn't meant it to sound like a threat but she can hardly comprehend that her phone can make calls without being wired to a wall. To know that there are other forms of technology developed that track her every move, that she couldn't begin to imagine, makes her skin crawl. As painful as it can be that Brooklyn is so filled with ghosts, they're also strangely comforting. A reminder that the world isn't completely new.

It's not as if she has a bad life, or as if she thinks the world was better as it was before. There are a lot of things that are better now, and continuing to improve every day. She just doesn't know what her place in this new world is, especially when Raven and her super suits have the hero thing covered (for the most part).

It makes sense that she would project Bellamy's features onto everyone she sees. Even when nowhere else wanted her, she always fit with him.

So the problem isn't that she thought she saw Bellamy.

The problem is that she actually saw Bellamy, curls long and unkempt, eyes betraying no recognition, with a metal arm and a bloodthirsty reputation, but unmistakably him.

"You think the Winter Soldier is Bellamy Blake," says Kane, his arms crossed over his chest and lips pressed together in a firm line.

"I know how it sounds."

"Do you?"

"I'd know him anywhere."

"That's the problem." Kane and Sinclair exchange a look. "We can't rely on wishful thinking. According to your psych evals, you're likely to see things that--"

"Has the word 'confidential' changed its meaning in the past seventy years?" She says mildly. She wasn't naive enough to think they weren't keeping tabs on her, but her contract with the military was up decades ago. It was up the moment that plane went down. Her mental state is no one's business but her own.

"We were worried about you. And rightfully so."

"I'm not hallucinating." She sighs and rubs at her eyes. "I don't know how, I don't know why, but it was Bellamy. Trust me."

"It's not actually that much of a stretch," Monty points out, tentative. Kane gives him an exasperated look but lets him speak. "We already thought they had someone with an extended life span."

"We also thought the Winter Soldier could have been multiple people over the years. A title that was passed down," Raven says, skeptical. "We know next to nothing."

"Do we have any proof that it's not Bellamy?" Clarke asks. Kane and Sinclair exchange another look.

"What?"

They hesitate, long enough for Raven to lose patience. "Tell her."

"Tell me what?"

Sinclair clears his throat. "We never recovered Sergeant Blake's body."

It hurts to hear. It hurts to know that Kane and Sinclair kept that from her, that Raven was either told or hacked their system, but didn't tell her either. It hurts most of all to know how much money and time they sunk into finding her body, yet Bellamy's was nothing more pressing than a question mark in a file somewhere.

"So it could be him," she makes herself say, keeping her voice even. "I'm the first person in half a century to get a good look at this guy and live to tell the tale. To not even consider that I might be right is--"

"We'll look into it," Kane promises.

Clarke doesn't know if she believes him, but the look on Raven's face is a promise all its own. Which is probably for the best; Clarke could try to investigate, but records are largely digitalized these days and that's really not her area of expertise. Fortunately, it is Raven's. She nods to her ally-- her friend, she realizes suddenly-- and feels certain, for once, that she's going to get to the bottom of this.

And if it all goes according to plan, she just might get Bellamy back.

But when have things ever gone according to plan?

* * *

"I guess we should have figured he was brainwashed."

Raven frowns. "Is he?"

"Obviously." Clarke tries to scowl but she's already wearing a fairly grumpy expression and the rest of her is too tired to muster up anything more. For someone with accelerated healing abilities, she sure does spend a lot of her time aching in every place imaginable.

Although she supposes the helicarrier she was on falling out of the sky and crash-landing into the river is a good enough reason to feel a little sore.

"The Bellamy I knew never would have done any of the things the Winter Soldier has done," Clarke says through gritted teeth, swinging her legs over one side of the bed and sitting up slowly. Raven purses her lips but knows better than to stop her.

She doesn't mention how painful it was to have him look through her, to show no trace of recognition, none of the fondness with which he used to look at her. It was enough to almost make her wish it hadn't been him after all; that she had been imagining things, and that her Bellamy really was dead.

But she can't bring herself to wish that. Not completely.

"That's not what I meant," Raven says, tapping her nails on her forearm thoughtfully. "I meant-- are you sure he doesn't remember anything?"

"You mean when he was pummeling my face in?"

"I mean when he pulled you out of the river."

Clarke looks up sharply. She'd come to with S.H.I.E.L.D. paramedics tending to her. She figured they had some sort of implanted technology that alerted them when she was in mortal danger, and-- maybe they had. But apparently someone else had gotten to her first.

"He did?"

"Don't get too excited. Whoever is pulling his strings could have decided you were valuable to them somehow. Or-- I don't know. There could be any explanation."

"But he could be starting to question whatever lies they've been feeding him." Clarke sighs and rolls her shoulder. "It's more hope than I had yesterday. I'll take it."

Raven is quiet long enough Clarke has to look up at her. She hasn't moved a muscle, hasn't relaxed the expression of concern she's wearing.

"I'm worried about you."

"I'm going to be fine," Clarke says, standing and squeezing her shoulder. "Good as new."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

"I know." She wets her lips. "He never gave up on me, Raven. He's-- He's family. I can't give up on him. Not yet."

"Okay, but-- you might have to eventually. You know that, right? Even if he's not the one behind the wheel, someone is using him to do a lot of dirty work. I don't know this guy, but if he was your friend I doubt he'd want you to let him keep doing it."

"I know," says Clarke, because it's true. Not because she's come to terms with it yet.

"Alright." Raven shakes her head, ponytail swinging. "If you're not going to die on us, I'm going back to the lab. We got some of his blood off your shield--"

"I got him pretty good in the nose, didn't I."

"Judging by the amount of blood? Yeah, you did. Monty is running an analysis now. Hopefully we'll be able to detect what kind of chemicals are in his system, what they might be doing to him."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank us yet. We might not find anything."

"I'm thanking you for being on my side."

"We're your teammates," Raven shrugs. "You'd do the same for us."

Clarke nudges her. "Let me feel touched for a moment, okay?"

"Fine." Raven rolls her eyes. "Just let me know when it's over."

"Yeah," Clarke laughs. "Will do."

* * *

She spends a few days at the Avengers tower, looking over Bellamy's file for the millionth time and waiting for Raven and Monty to find something. Eventually Raven snaps.

"Quit hovering. You're only slowing down the process."

"I'm not hovering."

"You are, and I'm fed up with it. It's driving us berserk. And you know what happens to Monty when he goes berserk."

"Can we stop using me as a threat?" Monty says from where he's still bent over a microscope. "I'm tired of being the big guns. You have literal big guns you could threaten her with."

"You're saying Clarke isn't annoying the hell out of you?"

"It's not the ideal working conditions," he sighs, looking up in exasperation at Raven. To Clarke he adds, "We promise when we find something, you'll be the first to know. Now go get some sleep. And maybe a shower."

"Okay, okay," she grumbles. "I'm gone."

She goes back to her apartment and takes a nap, freshens up, makes some food, generally tries not to feel helpless. But there's nothing to take her mind off the situation, so she gets dressed and wanders around, trying to figure out what she can do.

It's no surprise that she ends up at the museum downtown. For one thing, she always feels closer to Bellamy at museums. He and Octavia had spent a lot of time at them as kids, being free, open to the public, and not their home. Octavia had never enjoyed looking and reading and standing still but Bellamy... even if it was a placard he'd read a million times, he'd still study it with the same curiosity as if it were the first time.

For another thing, the museum has a whole exhibit dedicated to Captain America and the Howling Commandos. It has her Army uniform from the forties, the car door that had been the inspiration for her shield, maps of where her plane went down, where she was buried in the ice for seventy years. And it has larger-than-life images of each member of her former squadron, including Bellamy.

Her hair is pulled back in a braid and she's got a baseball cap on to be less conspicuous, but when she sees his face again-- his smile rakish, as if he's daring the entire universe to a fight just for the hell of it-- she's so immobilized by the ache of missing him, by worry for him in light of everything he's gone through in the past half a century, she can't even care whether she's being conspicuous. All she can do is sink down onto a bench and remind herself to breathe.

The fact that he's even alive... it has to mean something, right? He can't have survived this long only to be lost to her forever.

Clarke won't let him.

After a while she feels the unmistakable prickling sensation of someone's eyes on her. And not in the way of her celebrity, but as if she's being surveilled.

As casually as she can, she scopes out the room. It's mostly families and school groups here in the middle of a weekday like this, the one or two odd retiree standing with their hands linked behind their back. And then she meets the pair of eyes she's been most hoping to find, molten brown even when shadowed by his hood, the weight of it making her feel as transparent as ever.

Her breath catches in her throat.

They stare at each other across a room for the span of three heartbeats and then he's turning and slipping out the door, melting into the crowd with an ease she's only seen in world-renowned spies.

Clarke's feet are following after him before her brain has weighed in on the matter. He's fast and has a not-insignificant head start, but she sees him heading up the stairs and on a hunch ducks out the nearest emergency exit, scaling fire escapes until she reaches the roof.

He's already moving quickly along the ledge, ready to leap to the next building over. Clarke takes a flying leap and tackles him, both of them skidding to the ground. He rolls back to his feet as Clarke grits her teeth and pushes herself up. His metal hand twitches as if with an impulse to reach out to her but he doesn't make any moves.

"What happened to 'I'm not going to fight you'?" He grumbles, picking gravel out of the grooves in his metal limb.

"I never said I wasn't going to apprehend you." She looks him up and down. His hair has been combed and he's wearing glasses that look like he bought them in the eighties and lucked into the style coming back around. "Do you know who I am?"

"You're Clarke." Her heart soars until he adds, "I read the signs downstairs."

Her throat tightens. "Do you know who you are?"

"Do you mean that guy from the exhibit? Or the one who has been killing people for seventy years?"

"Any of it."

"I don't know who I used to be. And who I am now... I try not to think about it."

"Then my best friend is still in there somewhere."

He shakes his head before the sentence is even out. "Don't get your hopes up. I might remember more the longer I stay out of their reach, but-- I don't know what they did to me."

"How'd you get away?"

"As far as Hydra knows, I'm still at the bottom of that river somewhere."

"But you pulled me out." He looks away and Clarke wets her lips. "Why?"

"I don't know."

"Liar." He gives her a sharp look. She offers a small smile, trying to put him at ease. He still looks like he's ready to make a break for it at any second. "You may not remember me-- which I don't totally believe, by the way-- but I still know all your tells."

Bellamy studies her for a minute, quiet.

"What would you do with me?" He asks at last. "If I let you bring me in."

"Take you somewhere safe. Help you remember."

"I won't go to S.H.I.E.L.D.," he says, nostrils flaring. "Hydra has too many ears there."

"I wouldn't take you there," Clarke admits, soft. "They'd just want to lock you up for the next seventy years and run tests on you."

"Maybe that's what I deserve."

"You don't. It's not your fault. It's something they did to you. You never would have made those choices or done those things."

He looks at her sadly. "Maybe not. But I was the one who did them."

"What would you do?" She asks. "If you didn't let me bring you in."

"Go somewhere safe. Figure out what to do."

"Sounds a lot like my plan," she half laughs. "So... let's go."

"Where?"

"Anywhere. Somewhere they won't find us."

"You're Captain America. You can't just run away."

"I don't know how much you know about the twenty-first century," she says, smiling. "But there's a new hero popping up on every street corner. They can hold the fort if I take some time off."

He still looks wary, so she adds, "If you go without me, I'll just find you again. I don't know if you remember this about me, but you used to tell me I didn't know when to quit. I still don't."

He huffs, sort of laughing and sort of annoyed and it's so Bellamy it makes her gut twist.

"I'm not sure I'm worth this, Clarke."

"That's okay," she says, relief settling into her bones. It's a concession and they both know it. "I am."

* * *

They end up going to Nate for help, because while Clarke trusts Raven and Monty and the other Avengers to protect the world and keep her alive if they can, they're still on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s side. Clarke doesn't have anyone who is solely hers anymore, but Nate comes close.

She's the one who brought him into the program that Raven likes to call the 'Junior Avengers,' and even if the Falcon is more inherently similar to Raven's suits, Nate himself was a soldier like Clarke. Like Bellamy. He considers her a friend, she's sure of it, and she thinks he might understand.

He's stoic as he listens to Clarke's explanation, which isn't saying much because stoic is one of his defaults, along with sarcasm. Bellamy eyes him suspiciously and he takes Bellamy's measure right back, but neither of them make any moves to attack which Clarke counts as a victory.

"What do you need from me?" He asks at last.

"A getaway, mostly. I'm not a spy. I don't know how to avoid detection. Especially not with all the technology you kids have these days," she adds, causing Nate to roll his eyes good-naturedly at her.

"I still have my pilot's license," he says slowly. "And I've been meaning to take a nice long flight."

"We'll give you as much plausible deniability as we can," Clarke says, throwing a relieved look at Bellamy. There's reservation in his eyes, but no more than what's been there since the rooftop. Not enough for him to back off. "If Kane asks, after, don't lie to him. Just-- tell him we're running from Hydra. He knows S.H.I.E.L.D. is compromised. He'll understand." She bites her lip. "I don't want this to be bad for you."

"I know what I'm agreeing to," Nate says evenly. His eyes flicker to Bellamy and back again. "You sure you're safe with him?"

"I'm sure."

"I don't just mean from Hydra." He's rubbing his beard in frustration, trying to figure out how to say it, when Bellamy speaks.

"He's right. You don't know what kind of power they have over me. If they find us and turn me again--"

"I'll figure something out. I'm tougher than I look."

Bellamy's jaw works but Nate just nods.

"We'll leave first thing in the morning."

Nate offers Bellamy his shower and orders a pizza, offering Clarke a beer and turning some show on she doesn't recognize. Bellamy emerges a few minutes later, skin clean and hair dripping tiny spots onto a t-shirt of Nate's, and Clarke has trouble dragging her eyes away from the places where the shirt sticks to his damp skin. She excuses herself to the bathroom, standing under the scalding spray and trying to figure out whether his breadth and musculature always had this effect on her, or if that's something new.

By the time she collects herself and goes back into the living room, the pizza has arrived and Bellamy and Nate seem to be having a quiet, petty bickering match about the toppings.

"--only thing I asked for," Bellamy is muttering when she comes in.

"If you hate olives so much, pick them off."

"They've contaminated the rest of it--" Bellamy is saying when Clarke reaches between them for a slice and they both fall silent.

"Playing nice?" She says, amused. They glare at each other.

"He's still alive isn't he?" Bellamy mumbles. Nate rolls his eyes.

"I don't know if you've been rehabilitated enough to be joking about murder."

"Who said it was a joke?"

Clarke grins and shoves her way between them, trying to ignore how Bellamy's warmth and solidity against her side makes her feel very different than Nate's. "Glad you guys are getting along. What are we watching?"

She falls asleep halfway through whatever movie is on, waking when Nate shakes her shoulder and guides her to his room. She can feel Bellamy bristle and pats his knee, reassuring him she's safe with Nate, and doesn't put up as much of a fight as she normally would have when Nate tells her to take his bed. She feels a little bit bad about it when she wakes the next morning and finds Nate asleep on the couch and Bellamy flat on his back on the floor, staring blankly at the ceiling.

"Couldn't sleep?" She whispers. Bellamy doesn't look at her.

"Miller snores."

"Fuck you," Nate grumbles. "I'm not the one who breathes through his mouth all the time--"

"Let's not do this bit again," Clarke sighs. "I'll make some coffee. Maybe that will put you both in a better mood."

"Don't count on it," Nate grumbles. Bellamy gets up and follows her to the small kitchen, getting himself some water and watching as she measures the grounds.

"What?" She asks when his eyes on her gets under her skin.

"You look like you know what you're doing."

She snorts. "It's not hard. I'll teach you, if you like."

"Haven't had coffee in--" He cocks his head. "Probably since 1945."

"And you're a grump, so--"

He doesn't laugh but the corners of his mouth twitch a little, sending warm sparks down her spine. "You're right. It must be the lack of coffee."

"Clearly." She can't completely repress her smile so she directs it at her bare feet, curling her toes on the tile floor. "Is 2017 as weird for you as it is for me?"

"My whole life is kind of weird," he points out mildly. "You're going to have to be more specific."

"I don't know... Smart phones, Google, watches that tell you how many steps you've taken, digital books--"

"Digital books?" Bellamy blanches. "What's wrong with paper?"

Clarke bites back a smile. "So it is weird for you too."

"Probably not as weird as it is for you. I was here-- even if it wasn't really me-- for the whole transition. I'm not the most up-to-date on all that stuff, but... I kind of watched some of it happen. Enough that it makes sense to me." He considers her for a moment. "You were really just... buried in ice for decades?"

"So they tell me." She shrugs one shoulder. "I don't remember it. Woke up one day in a room they were trying to pass off as 1945, only the radio was playing a game from '43 that you and I definitely took Octavia to."

His face shutters. "Octavia."

"Your--"

"I know who she is." It's an encouraging sign to Clarke but it's hard for her to feel excited about it when he looks so wounded by the memory of his sister. "Any idea what happened to her after we enlisted?"

"She's alive," Clarke says quietly. "In a retirement community upstate. Her kids visit her a couple of times a week, sometimes with her grandkids. Husband had heart complications and passed back in the '90s."

"I guess they probably have people watching her."

"Who's they?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra, everyone."

"If you want to see her, we'll find a way," Clarke tells him quietly. That jaw muscle jumps again. She turns to the now-full coffee pot and pours three mugs, giving him time to process.

"She probably thinks I'm dead," he says at last. "I'd rather she did. If she knew-- if my mother knew what I've done-- what kind of monster I've become..."

Clarke turns and presses a mug into his hands, not letting go until he meets her eyes.

"If you need forgiveness," she says low, urgent. "I'll give that to you. You're forgiven, Bellamy. As for the rest of it-- we'll figure it out. Together."

He holds her gaze for a moment before nodding. Clarke squeezes his hand and goes to give Miller his coffee, wondering how long it will be before she gets used to the weight of his gaze again.

* * *

They end up on an island in the Pacific. Nate is less than thrilled that they're parachuting into a jungle in the dark ("You're just as likely to wind up a predator's meal as you are to miss land entirely and wind up in the middle of the ocean.") but on the plus side, there are tons of tiny islands in the Pacific. If questioned, Nate can honestly say that he doesn't know where they are, which makes Clarke feel better about not making him come with them.

The island is just large and sparsely populated enough that Clarke and Bellamy can live remotely. She's sure their photos are being broadcast 24/7, if not by one government agency or other, then by the media. She's sure that after a few months it will be conspicuous that she hasn't been seen around her neighborhood, that she hasn't showed up to save the world. But they're not so remote that they wouldn't have heard if New York got overtaken by aliens, so she figures Raven has it under control.

"Honestly, it's kind of nice," she tells Bellamy after a few weeks. He casts her a dubious look she can read perfectly despite the sunglasses he's wearing. "Nobody bugging me for photos, nobody making pop culture references I don't understand, no new piece of technology every week I have to learn to keep up with. We're off the grid and it's amazing."

"I wouldn't go that far," he snorts.

He's taken to island conditions better than Clarke, probably because it's in his blood. His skin has browned in the sun, his freckles more pronounced. He let her cut his hair, which he sorely needed, and rarely wears shoes. To her great relief he does wear shirts, but she thinks that's more about hiding the scars, tattoos, and metal fused to his body than climate comfortability. Even the fishing he's somehow better at, and it's basically just sitting still and holding a pole. She'll sit right beside him, all day, and he'll reel in ten times more fish than she will. She mostly just sits around sunburnt, frizzed out, and petulant, but from time to time she'll catch him eyeing her and smiling to himself, so she can't mind too much.

"Okay, maybe amazing is a little bit of a stretch," she grants. "But it's nice."

He shakes his head. "You're sick of having nothing to do. I know I am."

"You're not doing nothing," she insists. He's remembering more and more every day, which is sometimes good, but more often painful. Bellamy gives her a roll of his eyes.

"I'm going stir crazy," he says. "And so are you. Admit it."

"I'm... a little bored," she grants him. "But I wouldn't trade it." She looks down at her hands. "Honestly, I think I needed a little bit of a break from being Captain America."

"Yeah?"

She bites back a smile. Little things like that-- like him not pushing, but inviting her to share more-- reveal the old Bellamy still underneath the new one. Little flashes she'll recognize.

"I know-- I know we're doing the right thing. Or... I think we are."

"We being the Avengers?"

"The Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D., every last neighborhood hero. I do think we're making the world better."

"But..."

"But." She takes a breath. "Sometimes when I close my eyes, all I can see is the collateral damage. The people whose homes were destroyed in Sokovia. The ones who lost their lives when Ontari and the Chitauri came for New York." She rubs her eyes. "If we hadn't been playing with forces we don't understand, maybe none of that would have happened. If we hadn't messed with the Tesseract, or with ALIE... We make these huge messes, and then we get credit for cleaning them up. But I can't forget what got wrecked in between."

She's staring so hard into the middle distance she doesn't even notice Bellamy is reaching for her hand until it encloses hers.

"If you need forgiveness," he says quietly, "I'll give that to you."

Her eyes move from his hand on hers to his face, earnest and open. Her heart still feels cracked, but for the first time she thinks if the cracks went all the way through, it might not tear in two.

She's about to say something when a beam of light comes down from the heavens-- which Clarke would normally call the sky, except that when the light clears, there's a god standing before them, red cape billowing, hammer in hand.

Clarke sighs and pushes herself to her feet.

"Roan."

"Captain." He nods at her, then looks, curiously, over Bellamy. For his part, Bellamy is remaining remarkably calm. Clarke guesses he's seen a lot of impossible things in his lifetime, but from the way she can feel his eyes flitting to her frame, she knows if she seemed the least bit guarded, he would have his own hackles raised.

"How did you find us?"

"Raven found you. I'm only faster than her--" he waves his hand. "--flying legion."

"Why did you find us?" Bellamy asks, an edge to his voice.

"Sergeant Blake, I presume?" He nods. "Roan--"

"Lightning, worthy, prince of Asgard." Bellamy fills in. "I know who you are. I asked why you're here."

"Charming." Roan looks to Clarke. "We need your help."

"I'm sure you can handle whatever it is without me."

"Hydra has overtaken S.H.I.E.L.D. and released every prisoner on the Raft. Which, incidentally, is a terrible name for a prison."

Clarke's skin goes cold. "Every prisoner? Including--"

"Ontari was among them, yes."

Bellamy stands now, frowning. "I thought you took her back to Asgard."

"Yes, we wanted everyone to think that," Roan nods. "But when Kane offered to keep her here until we weeded out her allies from Asgard, I agreed."

"And now she's free."

Roan nods. Bellamy shakes his shoulders out.

"You should go with him," he tells Clarke. She swallows hard and looks at him, her heart in her throat.

"What about you?"

"I'll lay low." His tone is reassuring but even the thought of leaving him behind, leaving him alone has Clarke's entire being revolting against it. "They need you, Cap."

"Actually, we could probably use your help as well," Roan says, looking him over.

"I'm not delivering him straight to Hydra," Clarke says fiercely. Bellamy's hand on her shoulder restrains her and she takes a deep breath. "They could turn him again, and we'd be back where we started."

"That would be troublesome. I agree. But Raven had some ideas on how to keep Hydra from--" he wiggles his fingers toward his temple. "You know."

Clarke and Bellamy exchange a look and Roan adds, "Director Kane also believes that since he knew where you were, now Hydra does as well. You're not much safer if you stay."

"I guess that decides it then." Clarke murmurs, her eyes still on Bellamy. "You ready to be one of the good guys again?"

He offers her the shadow of a smirk, another little flash of the Bellamy of old who was always hankering for a fight.

"Ready as I'll ever be."  
"Good," says Roan, looking up at the sky as one of Raven's spy planes turns itself visible above them. "Because I think our chariot awaits."

* * *

"Little sisters, huh?" Bellamy says, once they're somewhere over Africa.

Roan scowls at him. "She's adopted."

"And evil," Clarke adds. "It's not really comparable."  
"Still," he shrugs. "Always cleaning up their messes."

Roan inclines his head. "I suppose that's true."

* * *

Raven's headset seems to do the trick. Bellamy's fighting is a little handicapped by it, his peripheral vision more limited and his hearing muted some, but even handicapped he's still the Winter Soldier. Still the first person Clarke wants by her side in a fistfight, even if it is against aliens and enhanced mutants and a whole slew of generally terrible creatures.

Without resources to hold Bellamy, and in dire need of help, Kane waives his status as a wanted criminal, and Clarke has to say, she thinks it's the right move. He's basically been spying on Hydra for the past half a century. He knows more than he ever let on, to them or to Clarke, about where they have people planted and who their sleeper agents might be. With his help, they bring most of the active Hydra operatives in, not to mention all the criminals he helps round up. By the time it's all over, it's been months of him working alongside the Avengers and they've all stopped holding one hand on their weapons whenever he's around.

When it's all over, Clarke thinks Kane might even pardon him. She thinks he might get to come home, and she doesn't know how to deal with the relief that comes with that.

"I'm not saying I'm glad Hydra staged a coup," she tells Bellamy, leaning into his side. His human arm comes around her without hesitation, another step of progress they've made in the past couple of months.

"Good, because I'm pretty sure that would be treasonous," he teases.

They're sitting side-by-side on the edge of Raven's pool, their feet dangling in the water. In honor of Ontari's recapture, Roan had brought back some Asgardian liquor that actually managed to get Clarke drunk for the first time since she became a science experiment. She wasn't expecting it, and she's maybe had a little more than she should have, but Bellamy is warm and fond and content beside her and she can't bring herself to mind too much.

She elbows him in the side for his comment and he catches her arm, metal fingers gentle on her skin.

"I'm saying I think I found the silver lining. The friend of my friend is my-- Wait."

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend?" He says, eyes crinkling as he smiles. She smiles back and nods.

"That," she says, smug that he understood after all. "Yes."

He laughs and shakes his head tiredly. "You think they'll just forget everything I did?"

"No." She kicks her feet thoughtfully. "But they'll remember all the good things too. You're no worse than the rest of us."

"Killing people on purpose isn't the same as collateral damage."

"No, but-- Raven sold weapons to bad people before. Roan led soldiers into stupid battles where a lot of them died. Monty can't control what the Hulk does. We have other ex-assassins, other people who switched sides. Who says you can't be one of them?"

He's quiet for a moment. Clarke just rests her head on his shoulder and waits him out.

"You're a lot more coherent than I thought you were," he says at last.

"I've been thinking about it for a while," she admits. He leans his head on the top of hers and breathes in deep.

"I don't want to get my hopes up," he admits. "I feel like-- I just got my life back. I just got you back. It doesn't feel like I deserve to keep it."

Clarke hums. "Well, we could still get killed tomorrow."

He barks a laugh. "That's the spirit."

"Yeah," she says sleepily. "You just never know."

* * *

"I jinxed it," she sighs, banging her head against the wall of her cell. She was so stupid, but-- some enhanced or other made her see things, convinced her that Hydra had gotten Bellamy, and for once Clarke didn't think with her head. She just went after him and now she's the one captured and probably going to be killed or brainwashed.

"Jinxed it how?" Nate's voice asks. Clarke whirls around, relieved and slightly disappointed to only see Redwing, Nate's mini-drone, hovering outside her cell window.

"I got too cocky. What are you doing here?"

"Finding you, obviously."

"Got anything in that little toy of yours to get me out of here?"

"Got something better." Redwing flies away and Clarke watches it go, muscles tense and ready. For what, she's not sure until she hears a commotion in the corridor, and then Bellamy's voice calling her name.

"Bellamy." Her voice cracks embarrassingly and she swallows hard. "They took my shield, I don't--"

"We'll find it." He appears then, the best thing she's ever seen, and has the cell open in a matter of minutes. Clarke starts to rush toward him, then pauses.

"Is it really you this time?" He frowns. "They tricked me before. Made me see-- It's how they--"

"Oh." His expression clears. "You, uh-- You drew all over my copy of the Iliad when we were fourteen and I didn't speak to you for three weeks."

"I illustrated it," she says, indignant, then throws herself at him. He clutches her close, squeezing once before pushing her away.

"We don't have time for that argument right now, Princess. We need to get you out of here."

The escape goes much better than the capture, and by the end of the day they've got another Hydra sector down and in custody. There's no celebratory party at the Avengers tower this time, what with Roan back in Asgard, Raven busy tracking down their next target and Nate over at Monty's, keeping him company after a particularly hard battle that left him with more guilt than usual. This time it's just Clarke and Bellamy, side by side on the fire escape of her Brooklyn apartment, watching the bustle of the neighborhood. It's dark and comfortable and quiet up here, above all the lights and foot traffic on the sidewalks below, and Clarke is struck with both nostalgia for the days when they used to do this as kids and overwhelming gratitude that he's sitting by her side now.

"I think what impresses me most is that you and Nate put aside your differences and actually worked together," she teases, swinging her feet in the open air.

Bellamy snorts.

"Amazing," he agrees. "I guess if I'm sticking around, I should learn to put up with him."

"You're sticking around?" She asks, raising one eyebrow. He looks at her from the corner of his eye.

"Raven told me there would be a place for me at the facility upstate. And not in the dungeon."

"We don't have a dungeon," she grins. He clicks his tongue.

"I knew she was lying about that."

"I'm glad you're staying," she declares, looking back out at the city. "I liked island life, but-- you're right. I was getting a little restless."

"Yeah, well," he shrugs. "I knew there was no getting rid of you. And they need you here, so--"

"Shut up," she looks over at him and rolls her eyes. "We need you too. I need you. I'm not losing you again, Bellamy Blake."

He keeps his eyes on hers as he leans in, his hand coming up to brush her hair back from her face. She has just enough time to wet her lips before he captures them in a kiss, impossibly soft for two people who spend so much of their time fighting. Clarke deepens it, can't stop herself from letting it devolve into something heady and intoxicating. When he pulls back, she chases his lips and he laughs into the space between them.

"I can't lose you either," he says, like a confession. Clarke grins.

"Glad we've got that settled."

"You have no idea." He kisses her again, both of them losing themselves in it until her lips are swollen and her skin is buzzing with anticipation.

They go inside and kiss some more, falling asleep tangled together as if they never want to be separated again. Clarke doesn't mind not getting laid tonight; they're both too worn out for anything more, and she has a feeling they have plenty of time. 

When the morning sun streams in the window, warm and gentle against their skin, she groans and hides her face in the crook of his neck. Bellamy's hand strokes her back.

"Time to get up?" He mumbles.

The events of last night come flooding back to her and she has to smile. She feels more rested than she has in a long time. And she rested for seventy years, so that's really saying something.

"Yeah," she says, pressing her smile into his skin. "Time to save the world."

And they do.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to make it obvious? But in case it wasn't, 
> 
> Clarke = Steve Rogers/Captain America  
> Bellamy = Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier  
> Miller = Sam Wilson/Falcon  
> Raven = Tony Stark/Iron (Wo)Man  
> Monty = Bruce Banner/Hulk  
> Roan = Thor  
> Ontari = Loki  
> Kane = Fury minus the eyepatch


End file.
